Back Pain and Doctor Shopping: Evidence from Medicare

Despite the escalating problem of the abuse of painkillers through doctor-shopping, fairly little academic research has been devoted to the problem. This paper quantifies the extent of doctor-shopping for legal opioids among back pain patients enrolled in Medicare from 2006 to 2011. It utilizes Medicare claims data to track patients’ demographics, utilization of inpatient and outpatient services, and prescription drug claims over that period. Through descriptive statistics and analysis it explores the extent of the problem and identifies predictors of abusive behavior.